A Distorted View of God

No matter what I do or what I have been taught, I have a view of God that is just plain wrong; not all the time mind you, but more often than I am comfortable with. I often think of God as a punishing God, you know, like in the Old Testament.

I am afflicted by thoughts that I am being punished for sins when things go wrong in my life, or something bad happens. I know the Father isn't sitting on his throne, watching my every move just to smack me if I do something that is not right. That is NOT what a loving father does. He disciplines yes, and many times the disciplined might view things that happen as a punishment, and perhaps I do also. I know from my own experience as a father that my children clearly knew when I was disciplining them and when they were being punished.

There is a running joke among my adult children that whenever I assigned chores to them when they lived at home I would say, after a fair amount of whining from them, that the chores would build character in them. I actually did say that to them, for I knew they wouldn't understand what I was trying to do. So I would explain to them that we all lived in this house that we call home, and we all have to have a hand in taking care of it. And of course...it builds character. They knew this was not punishment per se, but it sure felt like it to them at times!

But when the time came for real punishment...they knew the difference. Why can't I tell that difference with God, my Father? Why do I so often feel as if I am being punished for my sins when something bad happens to me or my family? I learned a long time ago that God does not have to punish us in this world for committing sin. Many times our own actions provide the punishment itself.

Remember when the man who was blind from birth came to Jesus and our Lord was asked by the others around him, "whose sins caused his blindness, the sins of his parents or his own?". I remember so well his answer to that, that it was not caused out of sin, but for the glory of God to be shown...and at that point, he cured the blind man. Or the 18 people that were killed when the Tower of Siloam fell on them, he told them that it wasn't because their sin was greater than all those who lived in Jerusalem. In other words, things happen. Bad things happen in this fallen world.

This isn't an essay on why bad things happen to good people. I wouldn't even know where to begin. I hope it is a beginning of my dissection of why I think the way I do about God being a punishing God.  I know he is the final judge of all of us, but I also know his mercy endures forever. I know there is punishment for sins, but perhaps not in this world, but in the next. Why else are we told that he makes the rain fall on the good and the evil? If evil deserves punishment, why not punish them rather than giving good things to them? You see?

Yeah, things happen, and I've got to stop blaming God for a world that was created in all his goodness, which man desecrated with his sin. I'm wrong in the way I view what happens to me in this life and thinking God is punishing me for my sins. Now...how to change my attitude......

Blindsided By A Jehovah Witness

At work the other week, I had trouble with a section of the machine I was operating. It was an electrical problem and Harold, the master electrician was just walking by. Now, I get along well with Harold. We joke and have short conversations as time at work allows. He is also an avowed Jehovah Witness and makes no bones about it, even keeping copies of the Watch Tower on his desk though not annoyingly pushing his faith on others.

As he walked by, I snagged him and asked him if he had a bit of time to look at my machine. He did and began to take the unit apart. At one point, in order to get to a few screws, he had to kneel down and promptly said, "Kneeling would be easy for you being a Catholic huh? We don't have to kneel to pray like you Catholics." I did not expect to hear this comment and I felt shackled in how to respond.

I knew I had read verses in scripture about people kneeling down in prayer, but at the moment, my mind went blank. Even if I did remember some, I am not as agile in remembering chapter and verse as protestants are. I do admire them for that. I wish I would be able to rattle off a verse here and there whenever I needed to. Even if I mentioned a vague reference to kneeling in the Bible, I learned from past experience, you better know your book, chapter and verse otherwise a person can run rings around you!

So I responded that I also do not always kneel when I pray. I have prayed many times while walking, sitting in the car, or in bed at night before going to sleep. I told him that our posture says a lot about how we present ourselves to God in prayer, and in kneeling, we are submitting to God that he is the creator of all and I, a mere creature of his, kneel in humility before him. I'm not sure of his response, but it wasn't an attack. He finished what he was doing, got the unit to work again and continued on his way.

I learned something that day. I may not know all the answers at the time a question is asked of me, or even knowing the answer, I may not be able to recite chapter and verse, but that does not mean I cannot go home, look it up and go back with answer. I plan on doing this with Harold.

I knew there were references to kneeling in prayer, and so I looked up the ones I knew for sure, and as a result, I cross referenced those verses and came up with others. Gotta love computers! I even have a plan on how to approach Harold on this, the next time our paths cross at work. I can imagine my starting a conversation in this manner:

 "Hey Harold! You know the other week where you mentioned that you didn't have to kneel to pray? Well, do you think it's not biblical or that Catholics feel that is the only way to pray? Well, I knew I had read about that in the Bible and I have several passages I want you to read about kneeling in prayer. Did you know that Peter, Paul AND Jesus knelt in prayer? And not just them, there are several other references to kneeling also! I guess Catholics are in pretty good company as far as praying on our knees huh? I figure...if it's good enough for them, well then....it's good enough for us!"

Next time I am confronted with a faith question out of the blue concerning how Catholics worship, I am not going to panic if I don't have a ready answer. I won't fail the test if I don't have the answer at hand, but only if I DON'T have an answer at all!

So Much To Learn, So Much Too Love...

I ordered a new book this week and it arrived yesterday. It is by one of my favorite authors, Peter Kreeft, and the book is titled, Catholic Christianity. This is his attempt to make known and help us understand, in his own unique way, our Catholic faith through the Catechism of the Catholic Church. As is always the case with Kreeft, I am not disappointed. I could not help but crack open this new book (it's used, but new to me) even though I'm in the middle of another one, just to get a gist of what I would be getting involved in. I had not even made it to page fifty when I came to this:

"Love grasps him[God] better than knowledge: for love conforms itself to its object, while knowledge has to fit its object into itself, into the limitations of the knower. A child can understand only a tiny part of a parent but can love the whole. Love can be more true to objective reality than knowledge can, in this sense: we can know others only as we can understand them, but we can love them as they are in themselves.

Thought cannot comprehend God, but love can apprehend him. Our minds cannot surround him and define him, but our wills can reach out to him and touch him.  Even among ourselves, we can never fully understand each other, but we can fully love each other.

The ultimate goal of theology is to know God in this way, with the heart and will, not only with the mind: to "know" him as a person loved, not just a concept known. If we know God thus, we will fall on our knees and adore him. Our deepest eyes are in our knees."

This is how I want to know God and I fall far short of that. I know he exists, there is simply too much around me that points to his existence not to believe in him. I have faith in God, though not in the amount that would satisfy me or him. I know he loves me, for he has proven that with the cross. I love him, but again, far, far short of what I believe is expected of me.

He continues: "Every Catholic home and every Catholic believer should have a crucifix. For the answer to all doubts, temptations, and trials is there. (In the reality it pictures, not just in the picture of it.) For instance, the problem of suffering and injustice. God's answer is not an explanation,but a deed: he did not hover above it like a bird but came down and shared it as a man, as a victim. Instead of telling us why not to weep, he wept with us (Jn 11:12). Christ is God's tears. And Christ is the conqueror of tears---and of death." 


So much more to read...and love.

Easter Dinner

Well now...I wasn't sure what to have for Easter dinner today. I had thought of a ham, but since there will only be two of us for dinner, it seemed that a ham would be too much, so I decided on having Baked Stuffed Shrimp cooked in a curry sauce. I know, I know!!!! It's not traditional...but think about this! His apostles were mostly fishermen right? Shrimp comes from the sea right? So what's the problem? None that I can see. Thank you Simon Peter, I'll be thinking of you during dinner :)

The Family Album

I remember as a child my father sitting in his rocking chair with my three siblings and I sitting on the floor in front of him listening to stories of our family past and present. We heard stories of those who had passed away before our knowing them, brought alive in their fullness, while our eyes were securely on this man in the rocking chair. We heard our history. We heard of the faith once held by our ancestors, and now, carried to us by tradition.

These thoughts were brought to the fore last night at the Easter Vigil. We heard our story, our faith filled story of the Church. We heard of our beginning and how God revealed himself. I felt connected to Adam and Eve, Abraham and Moses. These stories written in the most ancient of times are stories that legends are made of, but our history is not simply mere legend nor myth, but real. We heard from the very beginning what His plan was for us in the present.

Attending the Vigil, one cannot detach the significance of the past without losing the present, for it was in our past, our history of faith that we heard our story and His, intricately woven together. If one thread of this story is pulled away, then all becomes frayed. This thread is the cross and the resurrection.

In the Litany, we asked those who have now gone, to pray for us. Names of people from the ancient Church and thousands of years prior that seem so unreal to me, were called upon for their aid in our time. These same people to whom God entrusted His message now await us in heaven, knowing full well what we are experiencing in our lives for they been where we are. Abraham, Moses, David and yes, even our family that have passed are in prayer for us, and for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Yes, I sat before the Father last night and worshiped Him, my eyes securely on Him as He told me about the family members of the most ancient of true faith, my heritage, my past and His promises to all of us. He opened the family album and read the Word to us, His children.

What came to mind when I was a child, sitting on the floor while my father sat in his rocking chair, came to me again last night; I belonged and was not alone.

Happy Easter

Hymn Composed In Heaven

Every year at this time and especially on Good Friday, I hear and sing a hymn that shakes me to the core. It is the most heavenly, the most gentle of melodies. Sometimes you hear a hymn, or any song for that matter, whose lyrics and melodies were made for each other. This is one of them. There simply is no way to improve on it no matter how hard one tries. This hymn, this favorite of mine is "O Sacred Head Now Wounded".

Last night, led by the choir, we all sang this hymn at our Good Friday service. If there is one thing I have to criticize it is this: that I cannot sing past the first verse before my voice breaks...it breaks for emotion. That is not the fault of the hymn, but mine alone; the fault of a sinner before the face of unimaginable love. We have a saying in french, "le coeur devient gros", meaning the "the heart swells with emotion".

The pressure within my heart threatens to burst when the first strains are played at the organ. And make no mistake; this is a hymn that was made to be accompanied by an organ, or sung "a capella". No other instrument would do it justice. The melody and lyrics were composed by angels as a match made in heaven.

Listen to the lyrics, no...pray the lyrics, as the melody slowly and desperately seeks to lead you, the penitent, to the Godhead revealed to us: the Godhead braced in thorns. It is a vision not meant for the eyes, but for the heart and I can attest to that. I have held my breath at times during its singing, so as to not groan aloud, my eyes welling up. Oddly, I didn't seem to care if anyone saw me in this state while I sat in my pew, for I was alone with Him while I sang. The hymn has done its job.

Good Friday

O Death!! So big and powerful you think that you are!
You are but a shadow of what you were but stalk us at every step
Your deceptions and lies! The evil you embody! They are nothing!

Did you think to claim me? Did you think that by using fear my hope would be lost?
You are scum O Death! You are dead in yourself! You cannot claim anything for which was not assigned to you, yet you stride as if you possess all and everything! That is your deception!!

Tell me! How did you fare with Him in the garden? Did you win? Did you think His own fear would grant you victory?
You, O Death, the wall that all would come up against have lost!
You have become the door to life itself!! A life you prevented others to come to!

How does it feel dying in your own defeat, in your own vile corruption?
Your lies have been defeated for those in Him.
Open your lifeless eyes and see your defeat, for defeated you are!

You may come again to claim me, but you will fail in that attempt.
I may fear but I will not despair. That, you cannot force me to endure.
There is no despair where we find Him, and in finding Him
There you have no hold on me!